The goal of PolyTripper is to provide a website which solves your technical problems. We handle the lesson booking, timezone conversions, lesson disputes, lesson rescheduling, payments and more, so you can focus on teaching. Another way we support you is by only taking a very low 5% commission, whereas most other websites take 15% or more. Our low commission means that our margins are very thin, and we don't have the deep advertising pockets that some of our competitors have. We grow mostly through word of mouth advertising. This is by design because we believe that in this saturated market, the only sure way you can build a sustainable career is by building a brand for yourself. Not building a brand means that you're at the mercy of whatever platform you teach on and as many of you know, these platforms can change their search algorithms from one day to the next and make you appear at the bottom of their search results with no warning or reason.
All this said, there are several things you can do to increase your likelihood of attracting more students. We mention a few of them below.
When a student goes to the Find a Teacher page to try to find a teacher, your picture and video are what stand out right away. Make sure you have a nice profile picture. A smile can help! Many students like to click on a couple of videos to see if any teacher appeals to them. Make sure your video really represents the best version of yourself! It's worth spending some extra time trying to create a good video. Students have lots of choices and you want them to notice your profile.
Ask your current students to leave feedback on your teacher profile if they haven't done so already. When looking for a teacher, many students read the feedback other students have given to get an idea of how good a particular teacher is.
One of the techniques some teachers like to use is to start with lower prices until they have build a student base. They then slowly increase them, sometimes offering discounts to their loyal initial students. You can also play around with the prices of your trial lessons or instant lessons to try to attract students.
You can advertise your teaching profile on social media, like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn or Twitter.
You can create your own group lessons and try to get people interested in signing up in social media. In the FAQ - Group Lessons - Teachers you can read about how these group lessons work.
On PolyTripper we provide teachers the tools to create interactive exercises. These can be grammar exercises or exercises with images, videos or audios. You can request to have your exercise placed on our Exercises page where students will be able to find it. You can also share links to your exercise on social media. Your exercise will include a link to your teacher profile and a book a lesson button. Creating exercises is really not that difficult. We've created a Tutorial that explains everything and you can always contact us if you have any questions.
You can write an article you think will be interesting to students. The article will include a link to your teacher profile and a book a lesson button. After it is published, you can share your article on social media.
When you turn on your instant lessons, you will right away show at the top of the Find a Teacher page. You can let people on social media know that you are available for a lesson right at that moment. Some students love instant lessons, instead of having to book ahead of time.
PolyTripper has created several Facebook groups where our teachers can try to interact with potential students. We have a Facebook group for English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. If you mention that you're a PolyTripper teacher, we will let you straight in!
It can take some time to build a nice student base. If you are just starting out, don't just sit back and hope for students to magically arrive. It might happen, but you will greatly improve your chances if you actively participate in trying to find students. Some of the methods mentioned above might help you. Good luck!